Ozone is a strong oxidizing agent and a potent bactericide and viricide. Because of such properties, it has been used in the treatment of drinking water. Furthermore, unlike other oxidizing agents such as chlorine, ozone decays into products that are not harmful to the environment. As a result, ozone is being used increasingly in industrial applications, e.g., to eliminate nitrogen oxide from flue gases of fossil fuel power plants.
An ozone generator typically includes an oxygen molecule source, e.g., air, and an energy source, e.g., an electric discharge between two electrodes, for dissociating oxygen molecules into oxygen atoms, which react with the remaining oxygen molecules to form ozone. Most ozone generators use a dielectric barrier discharge, also known as silent discharge. Such ozone generators include a dielectric material positioned adjacent to a first electrode and spaced from a second electrode to form a discharge zone between the dielectric material and the second electrode. The presence of the dielectric material produces a large number of micro-discharges having durations on the order of nanoseconds. The micro-discharges are statistically distributed in space and time, and cause the dissociation of oxygen molecules provided by the oxygen source.